CHAPTER 84: 84: A NEW BEGINNING PART IX

---

John knew none of this. Morning found him at the worktable with his map of the region open and a stub of pencil doing small, precise work. Villages turned to dots. Dots leaned toward roads. Roads slid toward names he underlined twice: Cross Birch, East Hollow, River Gate.

Fizz lay on his back in the air, his furry paws steepled on his stomach like a nobleman visiting his future. "We will need snacks for the road," he said. "And a banner to wave as we ride past people who do not yet understand who we are."

"We will need a cart," John said, practical already and more so when plans were unsteady. "Or at least a pack animal that does not argue. Bread. Dried meat. A new whetstone. Oil. Rope. Chalk. A list for Gael so orders do not sit idle while we are gone. Two letters to merchants. One to Mara to keep her listening."

Fizz rolled until he was upside down and peered at the names. "Rettan Vale," he said, tasting the false words as if they were honest honey. "I would like him to have a face I can dislike."

"He will," John said. He drew a small circle near Cross Birch and wrote about white pins. He drew another near River Gate and wrote guards with bent noses. He did not write hope, because men who had been pushed out of their homes learn to let hope live without being told it is allowed.

Gael came in with his ledger and the smell of sawdust clinging from somewhere he had been helping, because Gael was the kind of man who helped before he reported he had helped. "Morning," he said. "You look like a map swallowed you."

"I need us three days free," John said. "Not this week. Not next. By the time the glass arrives. I want to follow two roads and see which one is a bridge and which one is a puddle."

Gael nodded, accepting a plan with the ease of a man who liked them when they were difficult and also when they were written down. "We can buy grace," he said. "Finish the gate hinges by tomorrow. Return the farmers’ sledges with a polish that makes them swear they sent us different tools. And keep the new orders simple: nails and rings, not armor and philosophy."

"Good," John said. "We will also need money that can talk to people who do not like being seen talking."

"Mara," Gael said.

"Mara," John agreed.

Fizz pinwheeled upright. "Also a flag," he announced, with the sudden solemnity of a priest announcing feast day. "A proper flag for Fizz Holdings. One that strikes awe into the hearts of cabbage knights and temple door knockers. A flag with my face, obviously."

John looked at him the way a man looks at a puddle he must step through. "We are not a caravan company yet."

"We are a mood," Fizz said. "And moods require branding."

Gael pinched the bridge of his nose as if a headache had asked permission. "If we must make a flag, we will do it properly. Good cloth. A simple mark that a child can draw in dust and know he is right."

"My face," Fizz said.

"A simple mark," Gael repeated, because he was a creator of many kinds of disputes.

John exhaled and surrendered to the inevitable. "Go. Make your flag. But no peacocks."

Fizz lit up like a coal that had remembered being a star. "Gael, to the seamstress. We will need linen, dye, and a ladder. Possibly a trumpet."

"There will be no trumpet," Gael said, and reached for his coat.

A few moments later...

They returned before noon with a roll of stout black linen, a pot of bright dye that shimmered like melted coin, a pot of white the texture of thick cream, a bundle of narrow leather strips, and an expression on Gael’s face that said he had indeed prevented a trumpet from entering the forge.

"Show me," John said, reasoning he might as well accept the spectacle before it surprised him.

Fizz leapt onto the table and unrolled the linen with a flourish. "Observe. A field of night. On it, the face of destiny."

Gael set down a chalk sketch on rough paper. It was, to John’s surprise, not ridiculous.

A circle for a face. Two elegant whisker-strokes on each side, curved just so. A small flame above the brow, not a fire but a spark. Beneath, an anvil reduced to three lines, suggestion only. Around the face, a thin ring that hinted at a magic circle. Simple. Bold. Something that could be stitched by hands that knew thread, carved by hands that knew steel, or smeared by a child with a berry and be right enough.

"It is good," John said, and meant it.

Fizz clasped his own cheeks. "You admit it."

"It is good because it is simple," John said. "And because Gael kept you away from the trumpet."

Gael snorted. "He tried to add stars."

"Only three," Fizz protested. "For balance."

"No stars," John said, then lifted a brow at Gael. "Can we make a touchmark."

"We can," Gael said, already thinking in steel. "A die for hot stamping the tangs before hardening. And a second, smaller one for leather and crates. We will cut it mirror, temper it blue, and hit it with a hammer like a reasonable god."

Fizz bounced. "My face on metal. Forever. This is how civilizations begin."

The forge shifted into its other kind of work, it was quiet, fussy, precise. Orna brought a length of tool steel from the rack, square and stubborn. Gael sawed off two blocks: one the size of a walnut, one a bit larger, enough to hold the mark without crowding it. He ground the faces smooth until they reflected the rafters in a dull, respectful way.

"Mirror," he reminded himself, and took up a scribe. He traced the circle backward, the whiskers switching sides, the spark leaning left instead of right.